Africa’s fastest growing economies

Ethiopia has held the title as Africa’s fastest growing economy in the past decade thanks to its fast-growing agricultural sector and coffee exports. However, research from organisations such as the World Bank, IMF and African Development Bank, suggests that Ghana may be poised to take that title and potentially beat out India’s growth to become the world’s fastest growing economy for 2018.

Projections currently suggest that Ghana’s economy will grow from between 8.3 and 8.9 per cent in 2018. In Banker Africa #46 we took a look at the macroeconomic situation of the Ghanaian economy and suggested that the country was set to get back on track following a tough year in 2016, the reality is that this estimate may have been too conservative.

With commodity prices on the rise, and the country’s oil production rapidly expanding in conjunction with Ghana’s position as the second largest exporter of cocoa in the world, the West African nation is rapidly moving away from the historical poverty situation.

The New York Timespoints to the IMF’s projections that suggest only Bhutan and Libya may have a growth rate that outpaces Ghana, but that Bhutan’s economy is significantly smaller than that of Ghana’s and Libya is recently emerging from a war.